The story I am about to tell you is a happy one, about a fir tree that lasted hundreds of years and still is out there in the woods without being cut. I discovered this evergreen tree while being on an off road trip, somewhere in the Southern Carpathians. What’s the age of that beautiful tree? Well, not less than 500 years.
There lived a shepherd who had only 10 sheep and they were spending the whole day on a beautiful glade by the river of Cibin. A storm came one day, and the shepherd gathered all the sheep and put them to be protected under a big tree and he went close to slip under a fir tree. He woke up after the storm but there was not a trace of his herd of sheep anymore. He was so upset that he started to cry and pray so he can find the animals again. The shepherd was so tired eventually that he fell asleep again under the same fir tree. When he woke up again the tree grew so big that he climbed up on the top and that way he saw the herd of sheep.
The news about that fir tree growing so big and helping the boy to find the animals went immediately “viral” so the locals decided not to ever cut that evergreen tree.
The famous fir tree made the entire area very well known in Romania and not only here. Locals say that they are really proud and they even decided to sign it up at “The tree of the year” contest, where by the way, the finals are now!
The story of the 500-year-old tree ends beautifully because I found out that the promise of not cutting the tree is taken seriously. Even though climbing to that tree is not very easy, authorities also promised not to ruin the environment for arranging a nice trail. We liked it just the way it is!
